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On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) stated that in order to convince people to support Ukraine funding “Democrats have to come to grips that we have to close that border down.” And urged President Joe Biden to declare a national emergency the way former President Trump did “and shut it down tight.” Manchin also stated that “asylum basically should be put on hiatus for six months or so until we can get an immigration policy that works for our country and also gives people the chance to come here the right way to take care...

A Mexican national illegally present in the U.S. allegedly assaulted a Texas Department of Public Safety following a vehicle and foot pursuit. The man is alleged to have been smuggling three migrants who were also illegally present in the U.S. Texas DPS spokesman Lieutenant Chris Olivarez, posted a video on X, formerly Twitter, showing a trooper engaging in a high-speed pursuit after the driver failed to yield near Sullivan City, Texas, on August 29. After the driver stopped and fled on foot, a trooper and Texas Military Department soldiers stopped him from returning to Mexico. The trooper struggled with the...

David S. Broder, 81, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post and one of the most respected writers on national politics for four decades, died Wednesday in Arlington of complications from diabetes.

Now that John McCain has taken care of his political business in Arizona, it is time for him to return to Washington and the responsibilities he bears as a leader of the Republican Party and the nation. (snip) One of the conspicuous failings in the past few years has been the absence of a second party making principled decisions on when to support and when to oppose the president. McCain has the best opportunity -- and the best credentials -- to restore this. (snip) It is up to McCain to choose when and how to exert the influence he commands......

The following is from a retired Border Patrol agent who specialized in criminal intelligence. If you choose to watch the video, please be warned that it is extremely graphic.

Can Democrats possibly screw up the 2010 election any more? Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who replaced Chris Dodd as the Democrat candidate for Senator from Connecticut, today was outed as a potential liar, on of all things, his military record in Vietnam. From the New York Times, no less:

WASHINGTON -- In the space of 10 days, thanks in no small part to my own newspaper, The Washington Post, the president of the United States has been portrayed as a weakling and a chronic screw-up who is wrecking his administration despite everything that his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, can do to make things right. This remarkable fiction began unfolding on Feb. 21 in the Post op-ed column of my friend Dana Milbank, who wrote that "Obama's first year fell apart in large part because he didn't follow his chief of staff's advice on crucial matters. Arguably, Emanuel is...

"I want to speak up for the American people and say: No, we really do have some good common-sense solutions. I can be a messenger for that. Don't have to have a title to do it." This is a pitch-perfect recital of the populist message that has worked in campaigns past. There are times when the American people are looking for something more: for an Eisenhower, who liberated Europe; an FDR or a Kennedy or a Bush, all unashamed aristocrats; or an Obama, with eloquence and brains. But in the present mood of the country, Palin is by all odds...

"It came as no surprise to anyone who knows her that Napolitano handled the incident and its aftermath with aplomb. In the years I have known her, she has managed every challenge that has come her way with the same calm command that she showed in this instance. If there is anyone in the administration who embodies President Obama's preference for quiet competence with "no drama," it is Janet Napolitano."

Washington Post columnist David Broder writes a love note to Janet Napolitano Most Americans got their first prolonged look at Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, last weekend. After a passenger on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam ignited a concealed fuse as the plane approached Detroit for a landing, apparently intending to blow it up and kill all aboard, it fell to Napolitano to take charge of the federal response. It came as no surprise to anyone who knows her that Napolitano handled the incident and its aftermath with aplomb. In the years I have known her, she...

In the last year or so of George W. Bush’s second term, commentators used to talk a lot about the conspicuous scarcity of other Republicans willing to stand up and defend him. I never thought we’d see Barack Obama face the same problem before his first year was over. But as Obama’s approval scores — 50 percent in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll — sink, it is getting harder and harder to find a full-throated supporter of the president. You need go no further from here than the op-ed page of Thursday’s Washington Post to see what I mean....

It is now as certain as anything can be in politics that 2010 will be a painful year for Democrats — a year of high unemployment, staggering deficits and a growing list of casualties from an unresolved war. Inside the Obama administration, that fact — and its implication of a sharply reduced congressional majority — is acknowledged. Strategy sessions now turn to the chance of curing some or all of these liabilities before the president faces the voters in 2012. The economic calamity has been evident for more than a year. The housing bubble collapsed before Obama was even elected...

Every time you think politics has hit a new low, it finds a way to go lower. I thought we had reached the nadir last month when Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted "You lie!" at President Barack Obama while he was speaking to a joint session of Congress. But then The New York Times caught me up on what has been happening in New Jersey. Campaigns there are rarely elevated affairs, but the battle between Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine and Republican challenger Christopher Christie has sunk to new depths. As the Times pointed out, a television ad for...

I hope that President Obama and his family enjoyed their week's vacation on Martha's Vineyard, because what he faces on his return to Washington is sheer hell. Obama confronted a daunting situation when he took office back in January, with a sickening economic slide and the real threat of financial crisis. But he was buoyed then by the momentum of his historic election victory and the widespread hope that it stirred -- even among those who had not voted for him. He launched a series of ambitious initiatives and, while only the economic stimulus package came to quick fruition, there...

With a bit of bookkeeping legerdemain borrowed from the Bush administration, the Democratic Congress is about to perform a cover-up on the most serious threat to America's economic future. That threat is not the severe recession, tough as that is for the families and businesses struggling to make ends meet. In time, the recession will end, and last week's stock market performance hinted that we may not have to wait years for the recovery to begin. The real threat is the monstrous debt resulting from the slump in revenue and the staggering sums being committed by Washington to rescuing embattled...

Opinion: Looks like the honeymoon is over for Obama David Broder The Daily Republic Published Wednesday, March 18, 2009 WASHINGTON — Two months into his presidency, it is far too soon to make any judgments about Barack Obama’s prospects. All we really know is that he has assembled the rudiments of an administration and launched a batch of ambitious but unproven initiatives. But it is not too soon to say that the Obama honeymoon period is over. His critics in Washington and around the world have found their voices, and they are subjecting his administration to the kind of skeptical...

<p>Two months into his presidency, it is far too soon to make any judgments about Barack Obama's prospects.</p> <p>All we really know is that he has assembled the rudiments of an administration and launched a batch of ambitious but unproven initiatives.</p>

Two months into his presidency, it is far too soon to make any judgments about Barack Obama's prospects. All we really know is that he has assembled the rudiments of an administration and launched a batch of ambitious but unproven initiatives. But it is not too soon to say that the Obama honeymoon is over. His critics in Washington and around the world have found their voices, and they are subjecting his administration to the kind of skeptical questioning that is normal for chief executives once they settle into their jobs. Obama still enjoys broad public support, but it is...

And then Tuesday, we learned that Roland Burris, a guy who has been hanging around in Illinois politics for decades, saw in all of this an opportunity to vault himself into the Senate -- no matter what Obama and every other Democrat from Springfield to Washington thought. Everyone, including Obama, has been exceedingly polite in their public comments about Burris. I have known him for years and I like him. But I have never been confused about the level of his talent. He was elected as far back as 1978 as state comptroller and stayed in that low-visibility office for...

exerpt: But I am struck by how lucky this country is, at the moment, that the president-elect is a super-smart person like Barack Obama. With each passing day, it becomes more evident that even the smartest and most experienced managers of the American economy are struggling to understand -- and fix -- what has gone wrong in our markets.